When Shaka Senghor (Watch: Shaka Senghor: Why your worst deeds don’t define you) was nineteen, he shot and killed a man — and was sentenced to spend the second nineteen years of his life in jail. At first, Senghor sat in his cold cell and rationalized his worst deeds. “In the hood where I come from,” he says, “it’s better to be the shooter than the person getting shot.” Then, Senghor found solace in literature — and his perspective was transformed in prison.

As part of his work with BMe, a community devoted to recognizing the positive achievements of black men and boys, Senghor recently posted a message on YouTube to his “young brothers.” In his somber letter Senghor tells young black men: Despite the fact that the cards seem stacked against you, peace and solace are both possible. He describes his literary journey, starting with the fiction of Donald Goines and bringing him to Malcolm X, which helped him come to terms with his past. Alongside his talk, Senghor shared eight more of the books, from Plato to Thich Nhat Hanh, that lifted him out of darkness, and set him on his way to help other young black men choose a life less violent.